After Ada had brought out an anti-macassar of a new pattern, a present from London, and had received homage, as its possessor, from her envious friend ... Ada, as all people do to their “bosom friends,” began to unbosom herself to her dearest Amelia.

James Rennie, The Art of Preserving the Hair on Popular Principles: an Account of the Diseases to which it is Liable (London: Septimus Prowett, 1826), p.175. First rule of hair oil is a little oil goes a long way. The oil acted as you would expect. It did give some texture and body to my hair and did smooth out the curls. It felt like I hadn't washed my hair in a few days and was slightly greasy to the touch but not terrible. It was really good on the ends of my hair that don't generally get a lot of natural oil and made my hair shiny. It did get rid of most of the frizz and made period styles more obtainable.

Although it was originally made with Macassar ebony oil (known as kayu hitam where it is still used in Indonesia), due to the difficulty of obtaining it, as a result of the decline in the availability of the tree (as the result of being overharvested for lumber), it was increasingly made with vegetable oils, such as coconut, palm or Kusum oil, [3] combined with fragrant oils such as ylang-ylang. [4] Macassar oil is often made with coconut oil or palm oil or that of Schleichera oleosa, combined with ylang-ylang oil (obtained by processing the flowers of the ylang-ylang tree, Cananga odorata) and other fragrant oils.

The profession of barber was organized, revitalized and achieved to recover its importance at the end of the 19th century. They started to associate in groups of "master barbers", implementing hygiene standards and a minimum of hours of practice. They started to work with the assistance of chiropractics, including lessons about the anatomy of hair and scalp. I thought I'd be the guinea pig and let you all see the result. Please don't mind the grainy cell phone picture and forgive me for being dressed for the 18th century I had just got home from work. However, I tried the scents authentic to the recipe. It smelled like a pizza shop! And while smoked bacon is my normal smell I thought smelling like a wood fired, artisanal, bake oven deep dish was a bit much. Even for me. I ended up scenting the rest with rose oil for my sanity. I know that people in the 1860s would not have associated those smells in the same way but there's only so long I can smell olive oil and rosemary before having to visit my grandma. But it was good to lean into James' strength, to feel the warmth of his flesh through the shirt sleeve, the muscle and rib beneath that nondescript tweed waistcoat, and to smell ink and book dust and Macassar oil. It was popularised by Alexander Rowland (1747-1823), a celebrated London barber. It was then not uncommon for barbers to make their own hair preparations, and around 1783 Rowland began offering Rowland's Macassar Oil. Within two decades it had become hugely popular, and was aggressively advertised with extravagant claims of its effectiveness, becoming one of the first nationally advertised products.They don’t write copy like that any more. An advertisement placed by Rowland and Son in an advertising supplement to La Belle Assemblée, or Bell’s Court and Fashionable Magazine, January 1807. The text was almost certainly composed by Alexander Rowland junior. The first known reference to the oil is from the year before. Bear’s grease itself fell out of popularity in the mid-Victorian period, replaced, in the 1860s, by alpaca pomatum, and, later, macassar oil, made from cocoanut or palm oil. People no longer wanted to rub bears’ fat into their scalp, and animal perfumes such as musk and civet were gradually superseded by botanical extracts and synthetic alternatives. Antimacassars are also used on the seat headrests of commercial passenger transport vehicles, such as trains, buses and, especially, aircraft, to prevent the transmission of hair dressings and conditions between passengers, simplify maintenance, and extend the life of fabrics.

Hale, Sarah Josepha Buell. The New Household Receipt-book: Containing Maxims, Directions, and Specifics for Promoting Health, Comfort, and Improvement in the Home of the People: Compiled from the Best Authorities, with Many Receipts Never before Collected. New York: Long, 1853.Figure 1: Staffordshire ceramic containers for storing bear’s grease, early 1800s, Royal Pharmaceutical Society Museum, Collection Reference YBC1 and YCB2. Design of a cloth antimacassar Armchair with antimacassar-Sheffield Mayors Parlour Antimacassars on rail carriage seats Macassar oil is a compounded oil used primarily by men in Victorian and Edwardian times as a hair conditioner to groom and style the hair. Bear’s grease was not, however, without controversy. Expensive to obtain in its pure form, the substance was frequently adulterated, being blended with – or entirely replaced by – other, cheaper products. James Rennie, author of The Art of Preserving the Hair (1826), alleged that bear’s grease was routinely substituted for ‘the grease of dogs or goats: or in the case of those buyers who pretend to be judges of the true bearish odour, old, rancid, yellow hog’s lard’.[3] London hairdresser Jeremiah Riggs claimed that ‘every pot o’ bear’s grease in London vos sometime or other hinside a pig [sic]’.[4] So notorious was the adulteration of bear’s grease that some ‘honest’ vendors even housed live bears on their premises so that they could slaughter them publicly to prove the origin of their fat. In 1824, for instance, two hairdressers, Mr Mcalpine and Mr Money, were summoned before the Lord Mayor of London for creating a public nuisance by keeping live Russian bears on their premises in Threadneedle Street. One of the animals, it was reported, ‘could put his leg or arm out to its full extent and seize any passengers with its claws’; the other was said to be ‘almost entirely at liberty, and might, if it so pleased him, vent his displeasure on any of his Majesty’s subjects who came near him’.[5]